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Kenneth Paul Tan

Professor of Politics, Film, and Cultural Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU)

Associate Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

Schools

  • Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

Expertise

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Biography

Kenneth Paul TAN is a tenured Professor of Politics, Film, and Cultural Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), which hired him under its Talent100 initiative in February 2021. He teaches and conducts interdisciplinary research at the Academy of Film, the Department of Journalism, the Department of Government and International Studies, and the Smart Society Lab.

Previously, he was a tenured Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School). He was Vice Dean of the LKY School during the most rapid and critical years of its growth and served in its senior leadership team for almost a decade. Prior to that, he taught concurrently at the NUS Political Science Department (where he was Assistant Head) and the University Scholars Programme, the university's pioneering and cutting-edge liberal arts programme.

He has received numerous teaching awards over the years, including NUS's most prestigious Outstanding Educator Award. He was elected Chair of the university's Teaching Academy.

His books include Movies to Save Our World: Imagining Poverty, Inequality and Environmental Destruction in the 21st Century (Penguin, 2022), Singapore's First Year of COVID-19: Public Health, Immigration, the Neoliberal State, and Authoritarian Populism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), 新加坡模式:城邦國家建構簡史 (季風帶文化,2020), Singapore: Identity, Brand, Power (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Governing Global-City Singapore: Legacies and Futures After Lee Kuan Yew (Routledge, 2017), Cinema and Television in Singapore: Resistance in One Dimension (Brill, 2008), and Renaissance Singapore? Economy, Culture, and Politics (NUS Press, 2007).

He is currently working on three books: (1) Decadent Technocracy: Imagining the Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Global-City Singapore; (2) Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Vice Regulation and Public Morality in Singapore; and (3) Asia and the (New) Cold War(s): Migration, Identities, Lived Experience, and Ideological Struggle (contract with Palgrave Macmillan).

He has also published numerous articles in leading international journals, reflecting an innovative and interdisciplinary research agenda that bridges Political Science, Public Management, Policy Studies, Sociology, Urban Studies, Cultural Studies, and Film and Media Studies.

He has held visiting fellowships and honorary professorships at the Australian National University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Georgetown University (on a Fulbright Fellowship), Harvard University, Sciences Po, the University of Duisburg-Essen, and the University of Hong Kong. In 1995, he received the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew Postgraduate Scholarship to do a PhD in Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge, which he completed in 2000. In 1994, he obtained a First Class Honours degree in the Joint School of Economics and Politics at the University of Bristol on a Public Service Commission Overseas Merit (Open) Scholarship.

He is a member of the National Arts Council (Singapore)’s Arts Advisory Panel and the National Museum of Singapore’s Advisory Board. He was the founding chair of the Asian Film Archive’s Board of Directors and the chair of the Board of Directors of theatre company The Necessary Stage (Singapore).

He is a trained musician and an enthusiastic marathon runner. He is married to Clara Lim-Tan, Director (Arts Education) at the Ministry of Education (Singapore).

Awards and Fellowships

  • Hiroshi Kitamura Visiting Professor, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany (2018)
  • Visiting Scholar, Chinese University of Hong Kong (2018)
  • Visiting Scholar, Sciences Po, France (2017)
  • Visiting Scholar, Griffith University, Australia (2014)
  • Visiting Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, US (2011)
  • Visiting Fellow, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Australia (2010)
  • American Political Science Association, Recognition of Award-Winning Political Science Faculty (2009)
  • Outstanding Educator Award, National University of Singapore (NUS) (2009)
  • Fulbright Visiting Researcher, Georgetown University, US (2008)
  • NUS Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Teaching Excellence Award (2008)
  • NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Teaching Excellence Award (2006)
  • NUS Excellent Teacher Award (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences winner) (2005)
  • NUS Excellent Teacher Award (University Scholars Programme winner) (2005)
  • NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Teaching Excellence Award (2005)
  • NUS Excellent Teacher Award (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences winner) (2004)
  • NUS Excellent Teacher Award (University Scholars Programme winner) (2004)
  • NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Teaching Excellence Award (2004)
  • NUS Excellent Teacher Award (University Scholars Programme winner) (2003)
  • NUS University Scholars Programme Teaching Award (2003)

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

Kenneth Paul TAN is an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, where he has taught since 2007 and served as its fourth Vice Dean for Academic Affairs from 2013 to 2017. From 2000 to 2007, he taught at NUS’s University Scholars Programme and Political Science Department. Over the years, he has received numerous teaching awards, including the university’s most prestigious Outstanding Educator Award in 2009. In 2012, he was elected Chair of the NUS Teaching Academy, where he was a Fellow from 2009 to 2018.

As an expert on Singapore’s politics, society, and culture, he has written extensively and holistically on the tensions and contradictions around Singapore’s transition from a developmental state to a neoliberal global city. His work is critical, qualitative, interpretive, and inter-disciplinary. It aims to explain the durability of the Singapore model of development, governance, and policymaking, and to evaluate its resilient in the face of profoundly altering circumstances and new challenges in the near future (or, more specifically, in the post-Lee Kuan Yew age). He has published in leading international journals such as Asian Studies Review, Critical Asian Studies, International Political Science Review, and positions: asia critique. His books include Singapore: Identity, Brand, Power (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Governing Global-City Singapore: Legacies And Futures After Lee Kuan Yew (Routledge, 2017), Cinema and Television in Singapore: Resistance in One Dimension (Brill, 2008), and Renaissance Singapore? Economy, Culture, and Politics (NUS Press, 2007).

He has held visiting fellowships and professorships at the Australian National University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Georgetown University (on a Fulbright Fellowship), Harvard University, Sciences Po, and the University of Duisburg-Essen. In 1995, he received a Lee Kuan Yew Postgraduate Scholarship to read for a Ph.D. in social and political sciences at the University of Cambridge, which he completed in 2000. In 1994, he obtained a First Class Honours degree in the Joint School of Economics and Politics at the University of Bristol on a Public Service Commission Overseas Merit (Open) Scholarship.

He is a member of the National Arts Council (Singapore)’s Arts Advisory Panel and the National Museum of Singapore’s Advisory Board. He chairs the Board of Directors of theatre company The Necessary Stage (Singapore). He was the founding chair of the Asian Film Archive’s Board of Directors from 2005 to 2017. He sits on the Board of Advisory, a fully youth-led nonprofit dedicated to empowering young Singaporeans to make informed career and further education choices. He served on the committee of Our Singapore Conversation, a year-long national-level public engagement exercise that began in 2012. He is a trained musician and an enthusiastic marathon runner. He is married to Clara Lim-Tan, principal of Yu Neng Primary School (Singapore).

Research Areas

  • Governance and policymaking in Singapore: meritocracy, pragmatism, legitimation, electoral and party politics, political liberalization, civil society, public engagement
  • Neoliberalism 1: The global city, creative cities, smart cities, urban development; cinema, television, and other media; the arts, including theatre; education
  • Neoliberalism 2: Inequality, social justice, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, migrants
  • Neoliberalism 3: Authoritarian populism, public morality, moral panics

Media Expertises

  • Civil society in Singapore
  • Global cities, creative cities, and smart cities
  • Higher education, curriculum, and pedagogy
  • Inequality and social justice
  • Neoliberalism, populism, moral panics
  • Singapore politics, public administration, and public engagement
  • The arts and popular culture (including cinema) in Singapore
  • Theories and politics of race, religion, gender, and sexuality

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